


Marathon

by TolkienGirl



Category: White Collar
Genre: Canon, F/M, Gen, No Slash, Too many pairings/relationships to tag, much angst, some paraphrased quotes included, this is a dreamy non-linear look at Neal's life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7965784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running is surviving, but only if he never stops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marathon

Running keeps him out of breath, but so does love.

Winestains, bloodstains. Cracks in the sidewalk, cracks in the façade.

Running _is_ surviving, but only if he never stops.

 

Double Windsor, grosgrain silk. Lies are easiest to tell when half of them are true.

( _The best lies a conman tells are the ones he tells to himself_.)

Plaster, fine-bristle brushes, the chemical tang of acrylic paint.

Handcuffs, cold and final. Ticks on a wall, pencil a poor substitute for paint.

Kate had a sweet, reckless laugh, and it might have been his favorite thing about her.

( _Happily ever after depends on where you end the story_.)

 

Anonymous postcards, Polaroid museum pieces tacked up in desperation in the walls of a cell that gets smaller every day.

Captured light fades, after not so very long.

Kate leaves, after not so very long.

Surviving means running, but only if he’s fast enough.

 

New York City traffic whines and blurs. Freedom is finite; hope has a two-mile radius.

More with less, he’s done more with less.

Elevator bells, fingerprints on glass, fraying office chairs, bad coffee on better mornings.

He’s fast enough to learn a new way of life.

 

_Listen for the tumblers; click-two-three, you’re in, you’re out, no one’s the wiser—_

No one is ever wiser.

 

He’s not a fatalist, he’s an optimist—that’s what will bring him down. Cynics are romantics when the world’s gone wrong.

( _Happily ever after isn’t for guys like us_.)

Neal grapples, trying to understand if he’s the trigger, the bullet, or the target.

He tries to understand if it matters.

 

Mozzie takes up seed gardening on June’s patio. The smell of soil mingles with the grime of the city air. Life, growth, green—

But it makes Neal think of a cemetery.

Maybe he’d be buried beside Kate, in the end, if Kate was buried at all.

 

Secrets and lies. Follow the money, follow the smile, follow the footsteps of anyone who’s still running.

They must have something worth wanting.

 

Enemies, old and older. Friends, holier-than-thou. In the end, everyone knows him. Except for him. Sometimes he doesn’t know who he is anymore.

( _You’re a con. That’s all you’ll ever be_.)

 

Neal Caffrey is real, but how real—that depends on the day, on the hour, on how much heartbreak he has to hide behind his smile.

 

Treasure, found and lost. Crimes, solved and split wide open as the ocean.

A drop in the ocean. A drop, a fall, it’s all the same.

Ink dries too slowly, bullets fly too fast.

Neal should know better than to fall in love again, but he does anyway. Alex Sara Alex Rebecca Rachael.

Kate, Kate, Kate. It all began with Kate.

Neal doesn’t know where he should end it.

 

Adler, Keller, even Hagan. They want him to believe that he is one of them. That Neal Caffrey is the last and latest in a line of sharp eyes and dirty faces.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe that’s all he is. It depends on the day, on the hour, on how many people he has left to love.

 

In the end, he doesn’t run. He dies. There’s a difference.

Dying is no great aid to survival. But it’s the only way he can live.


End file.
